Belonging
by drakontion
Summary: Dragon Age 2. Set just after the return from the Deep Roads. Hawke discusses the Wardens with Anders.


He noticed her as soon as she walked into his clinic, of course, even though she moved near silently in that heavy armour of hers. He never ceased to wonder at how she managed that. By all rights she should be clanking and shuffling and creaking as she walked, like every other warrior he'd known, but no. She glided into his clinic with ease and grace and perched delicately on the edge of a crate, that enormous, menacing axe of hers propped close to hand.

She'd been down here often since they'd returned from the Deep Roads. Just dropped in, fresh from Hightown, completely incongruous in these run down and shabby surroundings. Sometimes she'd help, though he almost wished she wouldn't: her large, strong, scarred hands were not used to caring for others, only with dealing their death; and she made his patients nervous. But she was compassionate and selfless and she _tried_, oh so very hard, to help whomever she could. It was the same caring he saw when she went out of her way to help free fugitive slaves, or shepherd a lost Qunari mage, or find a lone boy out in the wilderness. It was the same consideration that made that awful axe her last resort of choice, despite her skill in wielding it.

She had an open heart, did Mariah Hawke, which made the swathe of blood she left in her wake all the worse to bear.

Today she made no attempt to assist, just watched as he bustled between patients: healing a child with a broken arm, a mother with a severe burn, workers with twisted backs, more children riddled with worms and lice. He revelled in the work even as the hopelessness of their situation depressed him. It occupied him, kept him from thinking, kept _him_ from intruding into his mind, as he was doing all the more frequently of late.

Finally, however, his last patient left. He stretched, knuckled his weary back with a sigh, and walked over to the clinic doors, closing them firmly. He leaned back against them and looked over at his guest.

She'd remained on her crate but had scooted back to rest against the wall, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around them, looking for all the world like a lost little girl. She looked up at him with those big brown eyes of hers, a tiny furrow between her brows, and he was struck again by just how _striking_ she was. Not pretty, not beautiful, but memorable. She had _presence_. It drew everyone to her, kept them with her, and left her high and remote and alone. Almost, he felt sorry for her. Leadership was a lonely path to walk, even when not supremely suited to it, like she was.

"Anders," she said, and he wrenched himself out of his musings to focus on her, "are the Grey Wardens really so bad?"

Ah. So that was what this was about. Ever since they'd delivered Bethany to the Wardens she'd been distracted. He massaged his forehead, considering, then walked over and seated himself on a nearby crate.

"Bad? I suppose not. Just not good for me."

"Oh." She was silent for a moment, the plates on her armour grating together as she tightened her grasp around her knees.

"No one speaks any good of the Wardens," she whispered. "Everyone seems to hate them. And I handed Bethany over to them... my little sister." She looked up at him, eyes tortured. "I need to know I did the right thing."

He hesitated. "She would be dead now, if you hadn't." _Or she could have died in the Joining_, he thought blackly. Dead was dead, either way.

She writhed in an agony of indecision and self-loathing on top of her crate. "I know, I know. But... what if that was the better choice? What if dying is better than being a Warden? Than being hated and reviled?"

"You don't truly believe that, do you?" he asked incredulously.

"I have nothing else to believe." She shrugged, then looked at him again, pleading. "Please, Anders. Tell me being a Warden is not all bad."

"Being a Warden is not all bad."

She frowned, smooth brow marred and made ugly by the gesture. "Anders..."

He sighed. "My relationship with the Wardens is... complicated, Mariah."

"I know but... surely you must have some good memories of them?" Her eyes were hopeful, earnest as they met his, and he found he didn't have the heart to tell her 'no'.

"I have some," he replied grudgingly.

"Tell me about them," begged Mariah. "Please, Anders."

He sighed again, heavily. "Very well." He settled himself comfortably cross-legged on his crate, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

"I told you that I had a cat, right? Ser Pounce-a-lot. I said he was a gift from a friend."

She nodded.

"What I _didn't_ say was that that friend was the Warden-Commander. The Hero of Ferelden."

She gaped at him silently, looking amusingly fish-like for a second. He smiled tightly at her before continuing.

"He was... a very good friend, to an apostate mage. He defended me more than once. Protected me from templars who were hunting me. Went out of his way to make sure I fit in, even though I never really felt I did. I... trusted him. Cared for him." _Loved him_. "I would have followed him anywhere." He snorted. "And I did. Bloody Deep Roads. Have I mentioned how much I hate them lately?"

"You make it sound like he's dead."

"Dead? No. Very much alive. A king's no good to anyone dead."

She rocked slightly. "What was he like?"

He thought for a moment. "Young. So very young. That was my first impression. I don't think he was more than twenty when he arrived in Amaranthine, but already the Hero and married to the queen. Full of vigour and life. He made me feel old and jaded just looking at him. He had this massive bow he carried with him everywhere and he was absolute death with it. He had a mabari too, you know. Used to tell me about it. Fought the darkspawn with him. He missed that dog," he added quietly.

Mariah nodded. "I can understand that."

"Mm. I'm a cat person, myself. Never understood the slobber and the dog smell."

She dug a spiky elbow into his side and he grunted. "My dog does not smell!"

"_All_ dogs smell, Serah Hawke. It's part of the dog code."

She rolled her eyes at him and he smiled, just a little, and continued.

"He was one of the bravest people I ever knew, but he was so consumed by duty he didn't have room for much else in his life. He was a noble before being a Warden, you know. From Highever. The younger son. I heard that before marrying the queen, he was something of a rake." If one could count anything one heard from a drunken sot of a dwarf as truth, of course.

"He never seemed to have much fun though, not in all the time I was with him. He was lonely, I think. Desperately lonely. I think he truly loved his wife, despite the fact that it was a political marriage. He often spoke of his fellow Warden, who left. The old king's bastard. They were friends, you know. Up until the Landsmeet. He missed him deeply. He had a lot of regrets. He never spoke of them all, though. Of course," he shrugged, "we _were_ kind of busy, what with the Architect and the Mother and all."

She looked at him blankly and he waved a hand dismissively. "Never mind.

"He was strong, and he always tried to do his best, heard out all sides of a story before making a decision. Tried to protect the weak. Hated injustice." _Like you_, he thought. "He had this uncanny knack of making us all work together. It was weird."

"So what happened?" she asked, quietly. "Why did you leave?"

"He left."

"Why?"

"He was the king. He had kingly things to do."

"So you couldn't stick around after that?"

He shrugged lightly. "I'm a master at wiggling my way out of sticky situations."

"Escaping won't work all the time, you know."

"It's worked for me up til now!"

She frowned. "So far you're not reassuring me that being a Warden isn't all that bad, Anders."

He was silent for a long, drawn out moment. "I had some of the worst times and some of the best times of my life as a Warden. Times when I screamed inside in horror and revulsion, times when I thought I couldn't move from fear and pain. Times when the thought of what we were doing, what was happening to us was so terrible that all I wanted to do was curl up into a little ball under my blankets and never come out. But then... I had them. They knew what I was going through. They were there for me. They were my family. When we'd sit around a campfire, or around the table at the Vigil, I knew they cared for me. I could _feel_ them, in the back of my head. And they could feel me. We were... one."

She was watching him intently. He averted his eyes self-consciously. "I'd never really had much of a family. The Circle certainly never fostered a sense of family. Or belonging.

"The Wardens cared. _He_ cared. I belonged. And that was enough... while he was there."

The clinic was silent, distant noises echoing from the corridors outside.

"I understand," she whispered. "Family... is important."

He nodded slowly. "Bethany will have a new family in the Wardens. She will belong to them. She will always be your little sister, but she will be a Warden now, first and always." _And it will kill her_, he thought darkly.

They sat in silence for a time, each consumed in their own thoughts, and then she laid her hand on his and squeezed gently. "Thank you, Anders."

He put his other hand on top of hers and smiled at her. "You're welcome, Mariah." He held her gaze for a moment too long, caught up in her deep brown eyes, before she blushed and got up, dragging her hand away. "Anders..." she said warningly.

"Sorry, I know, strictly professional." He held up his hands and grinned depreciatingly at her.

She grunted sourly and hefted her axe, securing it to her back. It wasn't until she was at the door that he spoke.

"Mariah."

She paused, her back to him, her hand on the doorframe.

"You would have made a good Warden." It was the highest praise he could give her, and she knew it.

"Thank you, Anders," she whispered, and then she was gone.

He sat for a while on his crate, listening to the sounds of Darktown beyond his doors, then got up and went to his cot, sinking down and opening a box stored carefully underneath. He rummaged through it, not looking, until his fingers brushed a familiarly soft woollen bundle. Pulling it out, he laid it on his knees, and carefully unfolded it.

It was a scarf, warm and plush and deep amber in colour, scented with herbs for storage. Here and there small orange cat hairs were caught in the fibres, and he found himself stroking it, soft under his fingertips.

He remembered the Warden-Commander rummaging through the lost and found box in the Chapel, a mischievous glint in his eye. His exclamation of "Aha!" as he'd lifted it out and studied it. How he'd stilled, and looked over at him, then walked over and offered it almost shyly. "Matches your eyes," he'd said. He remembered blushing, and his hands as he wound the scarf around his neck. He remembered his deep blue eyes smiling and his warm, reassuring clasp on his shoulder. Remembered the friendship and trust and acceptance and camaraderie and yes, love he felt emanating from the man.

He sighed, and extinguished the lamps with a thought, laying down in pitch blackness and missed a friend, two friends, a _host_ of friends lost. And tried very, very hard not to think of escaping.


End file.
